(2003)
Dir - Kim Jee-woon
Overall: GOOD
Some of the details are imperfect to A Tale of Two Sisters, (Janghwa, Hongryeon), Kim Jee-woon's adaptation of the frequently-filmed source material that is based off of Korean folklore. Consistently moody, beautifully photographed, and making good use out of a few select, hair-raising set pieces, even if the obligatory boo scares are structured around drawn-out sequences of almost total silence, as is the norm. Jee-woon still cannot avoid using "girl with long hair hanging over her face with a crooked neck" ghost cliches, yet these moments are handled uniquely, with more time being taken to sustain dread as opposed to endlessly showering the audience with familiar, lazy tropes one after the other. On that note, the running time feels cumbersome and the twist is hardly the most revolutionary out there. The last twenty-odd minutes do more to muddle the previous hour and a half than to satisfyingly expand upon it, but the film delivers enough unnerving manipulation to ponder the whole ordeal long after it is over.
(2007)
Dir - Jung Bum-shik/Jung Sik
Overall: MEH
It is a shame that the debut Gidam, (Epitaph), from the Jung brothers is so nebulous from a narrative perspective as it is simultaneously refreshing from a stylistic standpoint. An anthology horror film that does not reveal itself as such until nearly halfway in, its lackadaisical way of shifting through timelines, spontaneous dream sequences, hallucinations, and different character arcs and perspectives, (which all hing around a hospital during World War II), is endlessly frustrating. By morphing through everything that may or may not be happening on a physical plane, (let alone trying to follow several different plot points), the movie only stays lost in its nostalgic and tragic musings on loss, love, and regret. Despite their murkiness, the powerful themes are expressed in a visually superb manner with Yoon Nam-joo's rich cinematography being a star of the show, followed closely by the period set design and the Jung brothers Bum-shik and Sik's vast array of images that bounce between unsettling and beautiful. Most of the film plays to stark silence which gives it a haunting sense of suspense, yet unfortunately this is interrupted by Park Yeong-ran's overly-sappy orchestral music at irregular intervals.
(2009)
Dir - Joko Anwar
Overall: GOOD
This slick adaptation of Sekar Ayu Asmara's novel The Forbidden Door, (Pintu Terlarang), from Indonesian filmmaker Joko Anwar fuses together David Cronenberg's Videodrome and David Lynch's Lost Highway, with a dash of John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness thrown in for good measure. By Anwar's own admittance, it examines the fetishization of parenthood and namely how certain couple's can be accused of starting a family more in order to fit properly into a societal norm than out of an innate, nurturing desire. The movie takes an approach that is on-the-nose for the most part, though it disguises itself as being more psychologically dense. Setting up the forbidden door of the title early on, it dangles said carrot for both Fachri Albar's troubled protagonist and for the audience, so that we all know that the climax will revolve around what answers will be given therein. This twist is easy to spot, but it is still delivered with an emotionally unsettling payoff that fits the rest of the film's boldness. While the ride is fun and punctuated by interesting, tonally bizarre choices that give it an appropriately heightened sense of non-reality, the ending unwraps everything in a manner that leaves the viewer with nothing to further contemplate. So even though it is less intellectually challenging than it may promise at times, it is quirky and brutal enough to keep one's interest before the credits roll.
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